Critic's Choice: New CD's

By Ben Ratliff

Published: October 25, 2004

The jazz sections of record stores are crying ''incoming'' as archival reissues and box sets arrive for Christmas. More about those at a later date. For now try not to let smaller records slip through the cracks: ones by young artists on small labels (their own, in some cases) who don't have the marketing budget for displays at the chain stores.

These players are the glue of the New York scene; if their albums don't turn up in many CD stores, use the Web addresses here.

'Tales of the Stuttering Mime,'
Eric Revis

Mr. Revis is the bassist in the Branford Marsalis Quartet, and along with the drummer Jeff Watts he gives that group its tight, smacking sound. His vision of jazz begins with a strong rhythm section, and he has used Mr. Watts as the drummer on his own first album. But he is also one of jazz's relativists, interested in importing other sounds and forms and rhythms, and to this end he uses a dozen extra guests outside of his group in his original music.

On ''Tainted,'' Oz Noy's barbed-wire electric guitar sounds give a Link Wray rawness to a slow, bumping beat. For Harry Warren's ''Lulu's Back in Town'' there is a washboard, a banjo and Mr. Noy on slide guitar; ''Miles Sebastian'' is written for a string quartet with the bass as a lead melodic voice; and ''Black Elk Speaks,'' recorded once before on Branford Marsalis's album ''Eternal,'' takes the shape of a fragmented, Ornette Coleman-like piece with surges of speed.

Besides Mr. Noy, ''Tales of the Stuttering Mime'' (11:11 Records) includes some of the better young musicians in town, many of them often seen at clubs like the Jazz Gallery or the Fat Cat: the saxophonists JD Allen, Sherman Irby and Myron Walden; the harmonica player Gregoire Maret; and the pianist Orrin Evans. (Online: www.ericrevis.com.)

'Armistice 1918,'
Bill Carrothers

The pianist Bill Carrothers had a false start in the New York jazz scene in the late 1980's and early 90's, and retreated young to live and work in the upper peninsula of Michigan. There he makes records and, apparently, studies history. For his new album, ''Armistice 1918'' (Sketch Music), he studied the music of World War I and fashioned a two-disc narrative about prewar optimism, life on the front, trench warfare and the destruction of ideals and families. It is an ambitious work of repertory and imagination.

The trio at the album's core is Mr. Carrothers, with the bassist Drew Gress and the drummer Bill Stewart, who together explore a series of moods, including an orderly free jazz. The songs include ''Hello Ma Baby'' and ''It's a Long Way to Tipperary,'' as well as Mr. Carrothers's own suggestive sketches of wartime life. But he plays solo piano for tracks like ''Roses of Picardy,'' meditative, improvisational and flecked with dissonance.

His wife, Peg, who has a gentle, strong theater voice, sings familiar songs of the time, and interacts with the music in other ways as well. In the version of ''On Moonlight Bay,'' Ms. Carrothers sings the melody wordlessly over the band's monotone march. (Online: www.bridgeboymusic.com.)

'Focus Point,'
Luis Perdomo

The Venezuelan-born pianist Luis Perdomo plays serious, analytical music, wrapped in complexities of rhythm, with curling unison lines for piano and saxophone set over the interlocking of a drum set and a pair of bat?rums. His sound is related to the music of Steve Coleman, Danilo Perez, Vijay Iyer and Dave Holland: the apotheosis of the groove, and its development through Afro-Cuban rhythms and funk.

For ''Focus Point'' (RKM), his first album, Mr. Perdomo plays with Ravi Coltrane (in whose band he has been a permanent member for some years now); the Puerto Rican saxophonist Miguel Zen?a graceful, light-toned musician; the drummer Ralph Peterson; and other contributors. As with the albums above, the tracks differ widely, from solos to duets to quartets and quintets. This music is energetically limber, and proof that ''Latin jazz'' is an almost misleadingly clinical term. At this level, jazz and Latin music have dissolved into each other. (Online: www.mariahwilkins.com.)

'Marlowe,'
David Berger & the Sultans of Swing

David Berger has been composing for large jazz ensembles since the 1970's. In the late 80's and early 90's he conducted the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and even transcribed Duke Ellington's music, creating accurate scores where none had existed. These experiences must have gotten him closer than almost anyone to the music of Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, with their bracing harmonies, lush textures, and precise tempos.

His new album, ''Marlowe'' (Such Sweet Thunder), with an 18-piece band, contains a suite (''Windows on the World,'' inspired by the World Trade Center disaster) and an even longer piece (''Marlowe''). ''Windows'' is redolent of 50's Ellington, complete with passages that sound like Johnny Hodges (it's the alto saxophonist Jerry Dodgion), Paul Gonsalves (the tenor saxophonist Mark Hynes). And the trumpeter Steve Bernstein, in his use of the plunger mute, recalls Cootie Williams.

''Marlowe,'' in 12 movements and 40 minutes, grows much more expansive as it establishes each hard-bitten conceit. Pieces like ''Stakeout in the Rain'' and ''El Barrio'' use repetition in the service of wary, pensive moods. Ellington's in there, to a certain degree (especially the Ellington of the ''Anatomy of a Murder'' film score), but the tunes also flourish into Count Basie-like section riffs, and use flute harmonies and dissonant guitar notes to set you on edge.

The album's music is rooted in the culture of the 50's and early 60's, and rigorously so: Mr. Berger celebrates that music from a position of tremendous knowledge. (Online: www.sultansofswing.com.)